Chapter I: NEVER had noticed it until

'Twas gone,--the narrow copse Where now the woodman lops The last of the willows with his bill.

It was not more than a hedge overgrown. One meadow's breadth away I passed it day by day. Now the soil was bare as a bone,

And black betwixt two meadows green, Though fresh-cut faggot ends Of hazel made some amends With a gleam as if flowers they had been.

Strange it could have hidden so near! And now I see as I look That the small winding brook, A tributary's tributary, rises there.

THE WORD

THERE are so many things I have forgot, That once were much to me, or that were not, All lost, as is a childless woman's child And its child's children, in the undefiled Abyss of what can never be again. I have forgot, too, names of the mighty men That fought and lost or won in the old wars, Of kings and fiends and gods, and most of the stars. Some things I have forgot that I forget. But lesser things there are, remembered yet, Than all the others. One name that I have not-- Though 'tis an empty thingless name--forgot Never can die because Spring after Spring Some thrushes learn to say it as they sing. There is always one at midday saying it clear And tart--the name, only the name I hear. While perhaps I am thinking of the elder scent That is like food, or while I am content With the wild rose scent that is like memory, This name suddenly is cried out to me From somewhere in the bushes by a bird Over and over again, a pure thrush word.

THESE THINGS THAT POETS SAID

THESE things that poets said Of love seemed true to me When I loved and I fed On love and poetry equally.

But now I wish I knew If theirs were love indeed, Or if mine were the true And theirs some other lovely weed:

For certainly not thus, Then or thereafter, I Loved ever. Between us Decide, good Love, before I die.

Only, that once I loved By this one argument Is very plainly proved: I, loving not, am different.

HOME

NOT the end: but there's nothing more. Sweet Summer and Winter rude I have loved, and friendship and love, The crowd and solitude:

But I know them: I weary not; But all that they mean I know. I would go back again home Now. Yet how should I go?

This is my grief. That land, My home, I have never seen; No traveller tells of it, However far he has been.

Afid could I discover it, I fear my happiness there, Or my pain, might be dreams of return Here, to these things that were.

Remembering ills, though slight Yet irremediable, Brings a worse, an impurer pang Than remembering what was well.

No: I cannot go back, And would not if I could. Until blindness come, I must wait And blink at what is not good.

ASPENS

ALL day and night, save winter, every weather, Above the inn, the smithy, and the shop, The aspens at the cross-roads talk together Of rain, until their last leaves fall from the top.

Out of the blacksmith's cavern comes the ringing Of hammer, shoe, and anvil; out of the inn The clink, the hum, the roar, the random singing-- The sounds that for these fifty years have been.

The whisper of the aspens is not drowned, And over lightless pane and footless road, Empty as sky, with every other sound Not ceasing, calls their ghosts from their abode,

A silent smithy, a silent inn, nor fails In the bare moonlight or the thick-furred gloom, In tempest or the night of nightingales, To turn the cross-roads to a ghostly room.

And it would be the same were no house near. Over all sorts of weather, men, and times, Aspens must shake their leaves and men may hear But need not listen, more than to my rhymes.

Whatever wind blows, while they and I have leaves We cannot other than an aspen be That ceaselessly, unreasonably grieves, Or so men think who like a different tree.

AN OLD SONG